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Abstract

Blame attribution research suggests partisans acknowledge evidence that portrays copartisans negatively but blame externalities for negative events. This study identifies another blame attribution pattern. When people observe unfair/dishonest behavior by a copartisan, instead of shifting blame entirely to others, they engage in blame-spreading. I conduct two tests: a survey of undergraduate students who watched part of a 2020 Presidential debate and a survey experiment of a random sample of adults that randomizes the party affiliation of the debate participant engaging in unfair/dishonest behavior. When the unfair actor is a copartisan, people blame both participants equally. When the unfair actor is in the out-party, people blame the out-party actor. These findings suggest individuals acknowledge undesirable behavior among copartisans, but seek to justify it by identifying blame-worthy behavior by others, thus providing an additional mechanism in motivated reasoning whereby individuals acknowledge events while finding a way to justify such behavior.

Keywords

motivated reasoning blame attribution partisanship debates

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